UNIVERSAL GENÈVE Compax ref.22522 cal.281 / Newman Dial

— An illusion created by composure —

A watch holding a beauty of visual illusion and balance: slim lugs against a generous Newman dial.

At a glance it reads as a big watch, yet once on the wrist its composure quietly settles the outline.

A beauty of balance between slender lugs and a commanding Newman dial. Chrome plating with a dull lustre, and classical square pushers. Cal.281, one of the calibres on which chronograph history was built. The aesthetics of recording and measuring, in what was called a calculating machine for the wrist. Composed dignity that carries the texture of its era into the present.

— Grey lustre, the resonance of chrome —

The chrome-plated case and hands give off a dull lustre that seems to drink the light.

Upright dot indexes; square pushers.

Both are forms particular to the vintage chronograph — design that keeps the texture of its period.

— Universal Genève Cal.281 —

The movement is Universal Genève's Cal.281.

It underpinned complications including the Tricompax and was supplied to other firms such as Girard-Perregaux — a quietly great calibre in chronograph history.

Its beat became the foundation of the craft without ever being talked about.

— What "Compax" means —

The name derives from the word of the period for a computer.

A complex chronograph mechanism was an industrial product concentrating the best of the available technology — genuinely worth calling a calculating machine for the wrist.

This watch too quietly embodies the aesthetics of recording and measuring.